Monday, September 1, 2014

Redux: The Eternal Autumn of Adam Dunn

Players I covered on the Chicago White Sox are peeling away, set adrift to torment the fan bases of other clubs; Alexei Ramirez, Paul Konerko and John Danks are the last remaining guys who were on the club for the entirety of my season-and-a-half stint.

Adam Dunn was the latest Pale Hose to be trimmed, and it's remarkable that the Big Donkey is being eulogized as he is. Yes, he's a good guy. But he's a good guy who falls just short of Jamie Navarro as the most disastrous signing in the Reinsdorf Era.*

And remember how much hell J.P Riccardi caught when he suggested that Dunn didn't take baseball seriously (and yeah, accurate or not it really wasn't any business of his, but boy the straight talk was refreshing)? Based on how Dunn "bounced back" from 2011, almost four years and about $55 million later, maybe J.P. wasn't so far off, after all.

With Dunn appearing in White Sox storylines for the last time, I looked for one of my favorite all-time pieces on the beat, which, naturally, Kabletown being Kabletown, no longer exists on (at least any main byways of) the interwebs. What the hell, here it is once more, in all its wistfulness and three-year vintage tinge.*This is, in fact, debatable on not only a visceral level — the high ("All-In") hopes of the Dunn signing in 2011 vs. the Navarro deal in the meandering late 1990s — but a statistical one, where FanGraphs (unlike Baseball-Reference or Baseball Prospectus) measures Navarro (2.5 career WAR) as an outright better White Sox than Dunn (-1.3 WAR).

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The
Eternal Autumn of Adam Dunn

Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011

Posted: 3:10 p.m.

By Brett Ballantini

Estragon,
sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot.

He pulls at it with
both hands, panting.

He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again.

As
before:Nothing
to be done.

­­Beginning of Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Adam Dunn signed
with the Chicago White Sox in early December, and the native Texan found the
hullabaloo awaiting him at U.S. Cellular Field cut down by brisk gusts, cloudy
skies and tiny specks of snow.

Dunn,
chronically happy and chill, was nonplussed, walking through his new clubhouse
and emerging into a wind­chilled dugout with the brashness that belied 38
homers per full season, pointing out at the massive, center field scoreboard,
some 600 feet from home plate and 100 feet above the field, and asking — in serious
manchild tone — whether anyone has ever lined a ball off of it.

It
was that combination of brashness and naiveté that swept Dunn into Chicago,
where he was penciled to cross 400 and 500 homer plateaus with the greatest of
ease. After all, there was no reason to doubt that a slugger as effortlessly
prodigious as he could ever lose his touch. As Babe the Blue Ox always followed
Paul Bunyan, Dunn’s power stroke would never desert him.

Well,
it’s August, the days are hot and sticky, and Dunn is nowhere to be found.
Figuratively, his production has been vaporized: 11 homers and 40 RBIs in 99
games, a .590 OPS (he hasn’t been lower than .819 since 2003), and a slugging
percentage of .296 that outpaces only the consummate Punch­-and-­Judy player,
44­year-old middle infielder Omar Vizquel, among
his Chicago teammates — and that by a mere five points. But literally, for the
start of this homestand, Dunn is absent, excused to usher his family through
the death of his uncle, which has incited an expected flurry of Twitterpating
messages all reaching an apex of: Adam, don’t hurry back.

“Dude,
this is who I am. What you see is what you get,” Dunn said last week in
Minnesota, by way of efficient explanation, apology and excuse wrapped in an enigma.

We
last spoke at length before the Twins series, right before the last vestige of
value Dunn could provide to the White Sox, rote fielding at first base in the
absence of injured regular Paul Konerko, had
deserted him in a nervous and bumbling game at the first sack, misplaying
several balls into additional Mark Buehrle pitches and even whiffing on a
pickoff throw.

A day
later, Dunn recorded three strikeouts vs. Carl
Pavano and was eventually pinch-­hit for in the ninth by Brent Lillibridge, who gives away more than
half a foot and comfortably more than 100 pounds to Dunn but nonetheless
achieved what Dunn could not, slugging a home run to left that sprung a 4­-1
game into an absolute laugher.

Straw
has been piled on the camel all season by Dunn, but manager Ozzie Guillen has
refused to snap and sit the slugger. But it was that ruthlessly efficient
effort by Dunn — seeing only three balls in 14 pitches en route to three
straight Ks and a fly out after Juan Pierre had
stolen his way to third — along with signs of outright disgust and frustration
(tossing his bat, helmet and batting gloves all the way back to the foul screen
after one punch-out) that may have finally broken the llama’s back.

Sure,
Dunn got three more starts in Baltimore, good for 13 at­-bats yielding a hit,
four Ks, and disappointment more deeply entrenched in all parties involved.
Meanwhile, it’s the relatively diminutive Lillibridge who appears to have won
the backup first base job, when he’s not busy covering for Alex Rios miscues in center field.

Dunn
prides himself not on home runs or mere runs produced but times on base, which
means he’s surely devastated at the notion that while he’s never had an on­base
below .350; he’s more than 50 points from that now. In fact, so many marks that
should have been absolute basement level for Dunn in hitter-­friendly USCF are
now so far from attainment he must be tempted to throw the towel in on the
entire season.

Dunn
is hitting .161, which represents a modicum of improvement over the last
snapshot taken of him. Still, that’s a full 10 points lower than the lowest
qualifying average in the modern era, Dunn would have to hit .317 in the
stretch run to tie Rob Deer — and
that presumes the DH still receives the same rate of at­-bats as he has been given,
inexplicably, through game 120. As stubborn as Ken Williams is, or desperate as
Guillen might become, it’s a virtual lock Dunn won’t see a similar rate of
playing time as days get sticker and times get crunchier.

How
could this have happened to a player who figured to go 40­-100 in Chicago as
easy as a sneeze? Mark Kotsay, 2010’s
primary DH, was howled out of town, and Guillen’s decision to choose a
multifaceted lefty DH over popular but immobile clouter Jim Thome was loudly derided — yet Kotsay’s
OPS was a relatively bloated .683, almost 100 points higher than Dunn (White
Sox DHs overall clocked in with a .728 OPS in 2010). What that indicates is in store
for Dunn is unknown, but it’s a safe bet it involves pitchforks and torches.

I’ve
said it before, but tracing back to the first day of spring training, Dunn was
destined to struggle. The Big Donkey and I had many conversations in March, but
it was the first one that still sticks out today. We spoke at length about his
poor start (and finish) with the Washington Nationals in 2010, and Dunn had
pretty well accepted the fact that he would start slowly in Chicago as well —
if he got off to a strong start, I’ll paraphrase, look out, because Dunn thinks
he might hit .400.

On
Opening Day in Cleveland, having bothered to look up Dunn’s starts stretching
before 2010 in light of his immutably ugly Cactus League performance, I was
surprised to see that March/April was the strongest season segment of any in
Dunn’s career — still standing at a .943 OPS for his career even after a
horrendous April 2011. When I strolled up to him at Progressive Field on April
Fools’ Day to give him that good news — no worries, Adam, you don’t have to
start slow — the genial slugger spilled his Dr. Pepper in surprise.

Alas, my news came too late, as Dunn had already resolved himself to a slow start, a
dangerous drop that would see him slip so deep he cannot climb back to the
surface this season. And now, noting body language and the absolute inability
to pull out of the swoon, it’s a legitimate question whether, at 31, Dunn can
ever climb back out of the morass that 2011 has become.

With
the Nats last year, Dunn opined to me that, on a team starved for runs, he was
forced to abandon his Frank Thomas­-like plate discipline and swing at pitches he’d normally take, and the stats bore that out — Dunn swung at more
balls out of the strike zone than ever.

This
year, the reasoning — and results — are more puzzling. He’s missed less strikes
in 2011, is making more contact, and he’s chasing fewer bad pitches, at least compared
with 2010 in Washington. But how he’s missing pitches indicates just how
confused Dunn is at the plate, as he’s inexplicably missing more strikes.

We’re
left with just the Canyonero shell, no motor or interior. Dunn has handled
himself well throughout his descent, remaining a good teammate and an amenable
interview. And the bluster of his earlier days, when Dunn could roll out of bed
and stand a strong chance to clouting a ball 425 feet that night, remains — as
recently as a month ago Dunn declared that he and fellow flounderer Rios would
be putting the team “on their shoulders” in the second half.

If
that’s what the club is dependent on, Sox fans, cancel the postseason show.

As
someone who endorsed a rehab assignment rather than rushing Dunn back from an
April appendectomy and not a couple of months later pressed the White Sox to
begin platooning him to save the season, and Dunn from himself, regardless of
salary (a strategy later apparently acceded to by the team), it’s safe to say
that as unprepared as the team was to deal with a slumping hulk of a slugger,
it handled the developments about as poorly as they possibly could.

No
one can force Dunn to watch more video or accept the fact that until he
develops beyond a Sosaesque handling of off­-speed pitches, that’s all he’ll
see in the American or any other League; but baseball is a long haul, and
successful seasons are borne of anticipating and steering around any and all
negative tendencies. The White Sox failed indelibly in doing so this year, with
Dunn and players beyond. Instead, Dunn’s tendency to be in constant “I’m
feeling better...I think” mode reflects that of the club as a whole, where
every series is touted
as the one where it all comes together and it defies its status as a mere .500
team.

In a
year when the club dove All­-In and the personally mended fences between key
members of the team’s management branch promised great fortune on the South
Side, there’s been a curious tendency toward cruise control as it has navigated
the season.

Is
there something wrong with Dunn? Certainly nothing that a little offseason work
can’t cure. There’s nothing to prevent him from hitting fastballs again,
relaxing at the plate, adjusting to the AL, its pitchers or the DH role.

What
might be a problem is the very historic nature of his season-long swoon. There’s
a reason why starters are rested to avoid 20 losses, or hitters sit to fall shy
of 200 Ks. Dunn is so deep into his morass, it’s hard to imagine that the rest
of his career, as long as it goes, isn’t just a matter of waiting for and
accepting the inevitable declines.

Dunn
still has every physical and mental tool he always has. Whether he can break
out of the prison he now resides in is another question entirely.

The
early returns, as summer cools, autumn creeps forward and suntans fade, are not
generous to the genial giant.

About Poetry in Pros

Brett most recently logged a couple of beats at CSNChicago, first following the Blackhawks and covering their first Stanley Cup win in 49 years, then shifting to the South Side and the White Sox.

His sportswriting career began right before the turn of the century, first as an editor for Basketball News and later editing Basketball Digest and Bowling Digest. He has written for Baseball Digest and MLB Trade Rumors, as well as the Chicago White Sox and MLB World Series programs, as well as Slam, Hoop, Inside Stuff, Courtside, Rinkside, and numerous NBA game programs. He has been featured in ESPN the Magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Baltimore Sun and Crain's Chicago Business, and on Comcast Sports Net, NBA-TV, NHL.com, MLB.com, WLS-TV, WGN-TV and the BBC. He's also written features for the NBA Finals and NBA All-Star Game programs.

Brett is the author of the essential baseball reference work 'The Wit and Wisdom of Ozzie Guillen.' When Ozzie first saw the book, on Opening Night 2006, he cracked wise to those in his manager's office, asking, "What's wisdom?" To which owner Jerry Reinsdorf replied, "Don't worry, Ozzie. You don't have any."

A lifelong Chicago sports fan, the first game Brett attended was on Dec. 4, 1976, watching the Bulls snap a (still) franchise-record 13-game losing streak and setting in motion the playoff run that would come to be defined as the Miracle on Madison. At Brett's first White Sox game on June 4, 1977, Richie Zisk of the South Side Hit Men homered over the roof at Comiskey Park at a time when the feat was as rare as a no-hitter. Brett's first Chicago Bears game was on Oct. 7, 1984, when Walter Payton broke the all-time NFL career rushing mark.

More than anything, however, Brett is a baseball and a White Sox fan, having seen hundreds of games over his lifetime, including a walk-off grand slam by Carlos Lee to defeat the Cubbies, the infamous Michael Barrett sucker-punch on A.J. Pierzynski, a then-season record home run by Oscar Gamble in 1977, Bobby Thigpen's 50th season save in 1990, and the classic Blackout tiebreaker win over the Twins in 2008. There have been many pilgrimages to see the team, including a September 1990 drive up from Texas to see a final series at Comiskey Park, an April 1991 flight to watch the otherwise-unmentionable first game at the then-New Comiskey Park, outrunning a snowstorm to see the White Sox be whitewashed in a late September game at Kauffman Stadium, and a jaunt down to the Hovering Sombrero in 2005 to catch the club take on the Tampa Bay Rays.

His highlight as a fan is, of course, witnessing the entire home run of 2005 White Sox playoff victories, including the two extraordinary wins over the Houston Astros at USCF that spurred a World Series sweep. More recently, he took in Mark Buehrle's perfect game in 2009, during which Brett made the boldest prediction imaginable—not of an eventual perfect game, but a Josh Fields grand slam! Brett has watched games in every major league city.

Brett graduated from Texas Christian University with a Journalism and English degree and came thisclose to finishing his English master's at Kansas State University while teaching composition to disinterested agribusiness majors. He's won a number of writing awards in areas as varied as poetry, fiction, features, news reporting and opinion writing. Brett lives in Florida with his incomparable wife, Angelique.

Poetry in Pros Trivia

Now that you know a little bit about Poetry in Pros writer Brett Ballantini, see how you score below. True or false, Brett:

Believes that the ABA saved professional basketball.

Borrowed the title of the first draft of his master's thesis from a Camper Van Beethoven song.

Co-founded and played in a band called Ethnocentric Republicans, who once shared a bill with 15-minutes-of-fame grunge rockers The Toadies.

Considers nachos piled high with jalapenos as his go-to concession food.

Gave a Crunch bar to then-Nestle spokesman Shaquille O'Neal before their first interview together in Milwaukee. Later saw an empty Crunch bar wrapper in Shaq's locker.

Gave three photographs from his personal collection to the Chicago Bulls for their "walk of fame" leading to the locker room at the United Center.

Had four front teeth.

Has appeared in one movie, in which he was murdered when Albert Einstein slammed his head in a door.

Has appeared on the cover of a magazine with a circulation of 100,000. As Santa Claus. Bowling.

Has attended just three games in Wrigley Field as a fan. One was to see the Chicago Sting.

Has been a vegetarian for 30 years.

Has been doused by Bill Veeck's outfield shower in two different decades, in two different White Sox parks.

Hasn't cried over a game since Tito Landrum crushed that homer off of Britt Burns in October 1983.

Has worked for at least seven publications that are no longer in business.

Kissed the Minnie Minoso statue in the outfield concourse at Sox Park on the cheek as a good-luck gesture before Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.

Caught a foul ball while covering a preseason game from the roof of Tempe Diablo Stadium. On his birthday.

To Wit:

"When I build a fire under a person, I do not do it merely because of the enjoyment I get out of seeing him fry, but because he is worth the trouble. It is then a compliment, a distinction; let him give thanks and keep quiet. I do not fry the small, the commonplace, the unworthy."